The document discusses the conventions used and broken in the production of an alternative hip hop music video. Conventions followed include urban settings like a pub and Chinese takeaway, and editing cuts that match the rhythm of the music. Conventions broken include using a teddy bear to show emotion and locations like a park and living room that are not typically urban. Location, sound, editing, mise-en-scene, the single cover, and poster are also discussed in terms of how they do or do not follow genre conventions.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our genre is alternative hip hop. Some of the conventions are: Rapping Urban setting We have obeyed certain conventions in our video by using certain types of mise on scene of which is of an urban setting, which include an urban pub and a Chinese takeaway setting. Other ways in which we have obeyed genre conventions is by using editing to match the rhythm of the music, by doing cuts every time there is a drum beat in the song. The ways in which we have broken the conventions of hip hop is by using a romantic teddy in the film to show the emotions of the song and the meaning. +.

2. Single Front Cover This single cover may break the conventions of a normal single cover as it doesn’t actually show the artists face. This cover also obeys the streets style of album/single cover as it doesn’t include an image of the artist.

3. Location During our production of this video we used four different types of location. These included a park, an urban pub, a living room and a Chinese takeaway. We believe we have broke the conventions of alterative hip hop by using a park and a living room. As these are not urban settings which you expect to be used in a video of hip hop, however these also relate to the song, for example when we filmed in the living room we included a dog in the shot to add emotion as the artist is hugging the dog, to give him comfort after his split with his girlfriend. By including a dog we have give the impression that a dog is a mans best friend. By having the artist in the pub it shows that he is still manly even though he is filled with emotion this obeys the conventions of this video as you expect a man to be in a pub and playing pool.

4. Continued.. By including the artist in a park we have broke the conventions as the park looks ‘’ pretty ‘’ and not manly, however it matches the song as he looks depressed and is looking for somewhere to get away from all the troubles in he's current life. By using the takeaway in the music video we have shown that we have obeyed parts of the conventions, as a takeaway is urban and is counted as working class rather than the artist being in a restaurant with he’s girlfriend which would be counted as upper class. This also represents him being lonely and matches the narrative of the song.

5. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Camera The song we chose is an emotional song about a break-up in a relationship. In our video we used the camera to illustrate the characters emotions of sadness and heartbreak. One way we did this is by using close ups and medium close ups in order to clearly illustrate these feelings. Below are some examples: To portray the characters’ feelings of loneliness we used long shots which showed him stood or sat alone. Below are some examples:

6. In order to set the urban scene and introduce the video; we started the video with an establishing shot of the character walking into the first location. The low key lighting also sets the mood. In the middle of the video we decided to use a pan as the character was throwing a stone into a pond; this allowed us to capture the characters’ full movement and also differed from the still camera shots we had been using. The video also includes high angle shots, these shots represent the characters feeling of inferiority to his ex girlfriend. The shot may also allow viewers to relate to the character in terms o f mise en scene; one shot in particular is at the characters’ house- the viewer may relate to the typical front living room including a television and family pet comforting the character.

7. Sound The only sound present in our music video is the actual song itself. A stereotypical feature of music videos is for the artist to be lip synching; we decided to follow this convention and also use lip synching. Using lip synching also highlighted the personal feelings behind the song as he appeared to be singing directly to the viewer to tell his story. However, we decided that the character would not lip synch during the chorus ; instead he would show his feelings through body language- for example sulking and slouched posture. Editing Researching the original artists of the song and other videos in our music genre, we found that the editing mainly consists of straight cuts to different angles of the character. We decided to keep the editing similar in our video, however we used dissolves during our video to show a change in the location.

8. Mise en Scene Mise en Scene is an important feature of the music video, it generally illustrates the genre of the music video and can also be used in order to attract the target audiences’ attention. SettingAfter researching the original artists of the song ‘Dry your eyes’, we found that most locations for their videos were generally everyday settings, such as the street, pubs and cafes. We decided to use similar locations to appeal to the target audience. The settings we filmed our video at were: a Chinese Takeaway, a pub, a park and the characters house. They are typical urban settings that the target audience can easily relate to. Chinese Takeaway The takeaway is a typical Chinese takeaway that viewers can relate to. High angles show a seating area and front desk to place your order. The high angle also shows the character is alone and no longer ordering a takeaway for 2. PubThe pub is also a stereotypical urban setting as it as a local working mans pub . The low key lighting in the pub also represents the characters’ emotions of upset and hurt. Park This location stands out in comparison to the others as it could be considered less stereotypical for the genre. However, this location matches the tone of the song and represents the characters’ feelings of heartbreak . Characters’ House This scene also allows the viewers to relate to the main character as this living room includes all typical features of a ‘front room’, for example a television, sofa, and fire. And would be the main place to fully let emotions out.

9. Also included in mise en scene is props, one prop that stands out the most within the video is the teddy placed on the floor. We placed this prop at the bottom of the characters feet to resemble the relationship is over. The label on the teddy illustrated that the teddy was a gift for his girlfriend. Other props such as the pint of beer create realism and also illustrates the characters’ feelings as he ‘drowns his sorrows’. During the ‘house scene’ the character is comforted by his dog; the dog portrays all the character has left for companionship after the break-up.

10. The single cover for the song illustrates separation between genders- a break up in a relationship. We did this by positioning females’ possessions on one side and males’ possessions on the opposite side. We used lyrics from the song to separate these possessions and positioned them as though it was a letter from the male. The lyrics may also stand out to the target audience who are familiar with the song. In order to advertise our product we produced a music poster. We used the colour blue to symbolise the sad emotion of the song and also to contrast with the black background in order to stand out. We also made our poster stand out by rearranging the main image of our artist to create a modern unique effect. We used texts of different sizes to highlight the key date of release and also used a smaller text that would advertise our production company. The main product and ancillary texts when combined together work well; the overall meaning behind the song is highlighted in each piece through different features including colours and positioning. We believe the target audience will be attracted to each piece as they include different aspects that will grab their attention, for example- mise en scene, emotions and location.

11. What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback? In the pre-production of our video, we did a survey to find out what the audience like to see in certain music videos. The research showed that the audience like a lot of special effects in a music video. However, we tried to keep our video similar to the conventions of the genre We showed the video to the our target audience and they thought it stayed true to the conventions. The audience thought it would have been a good idea to film a scene in the rain. Pathetic fallacy, the weather reflecting the mood of the song.

12. Question Four: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluations stages? We used various new media technologies during our project Adobe Photoshop for image editing Premiere Pro for video editing We used the blog to make the work more accessible Microsoft PowerPoint to convert text files to jpeg to make it easier to upload on the blog We used digital camera, which had memory cards to put on the computer, made it easy to transfer our files to the computer.

13. Photoshop We used the Rectangular Marque Tool to cut the image into rectangular shapes We had some experience in Photoshop from the previews year, because we used it to create magazines. It enables us to cut things from images such as backgrounds To remove a background or colour, we can use a tool known as magic wand Light blue stroke is used to make the text stand out

14. Photoshop In this window you can view the video in whole This window shows the clip you are editing You can also adjust the size of the images. Some shots have black areas around them, by adjusting you can make the images fit the whole screen All the video clips that we have used appear here This is where you can select effects, simply click and drag to the click This is the timeline all our video clips and soundtrack are place here